your people, your library

Life is too short to fall in love only a couple of times. One should fall in love at least once a month. That’s what I do. I fall in love with people who just walk into my life but it feels like they have been around for ages. I fall in love with my dog nearly every day. Sometimes I fall in love with characters from books, foreign towns, landscapes and their unfamiliar faces.

Photo from WORD Christchurch

This month’s love of mine is Anis Mojgani. When I first discovered him, I felt like this (from his poem This is how she makes me feel):

Someone has saved a baby.
There is a parade.
Someone has saved every baby.

I felt as if I was the one who saved a baby in Brooklyn in 1950s. I felt that this time, it will be different. This time, it will last. And sure I was right – Anis is coming back to Christchurch to perform on Thursday 17 March (Wunderbar, Lyttelton) and Saturday 19 March (Christchurch Art Gallery) – presented by WORD Christchurch in partnership with the 2016 New Zealand Festival Writers Week and Golden Dawn Auckland. I am convinced his visit will make my relationship only fiercer.

I am also convinced that I am not the only one fiercely hopeful and in love. Anis visited Christchurch in 2014, enchanting the festival’s audience with his slam poetry performance. Alison’s post is a true testament of his power to compel people through words and poetry. Of course, there are other testaments as well, like the double win at the National Poetry Slam and a win of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, three published books of poetry, an illustrated poetry-novella, multiple TEDx talks and all sorts of other creative projects. To finalise his portrait in your mind, I suggest visiting his neat and cute website: http://thepianofarm.com/

I must admit that this romance started in quite an unusual way. Old-school librarian like myself would normally embark on this kind of adventure with tried and tested methods, like reading poet’s books. On this occasion the media was … You Tube. Once I started watching recordings of his performances, I couldn’t stop. Performed poems like Come closer, This is how she makes me feel, In my library there are 17 books, Shake the dust have been proper hits on the web for a few years now. Discovering them felt as if I just joined the party, which has secretly been going on for a long time.

Anis is not only smart with words, he is also a talented illustrator and graphic designer. His abundant imagination echoes in the poems – they are full of childhood inspired imagery: growing cities, tall skyscrapers, teenagers running through the evening air, birds trapped underneath breastplates. At the same time, they are brutally honest, revealing humanity and humbleness to all things greater than us.

He is one of those performing/writing poets in English, whose work actually talks to me. It addresses me and I can easily relate to it. When I read or listen poetry in foreign language, I often find myself falling in the deep crevices of comprehension diaspora: a poem sometimes does not reach me, it does not resonate with me. It feels like many of its layers and nuances are beyond my grasp and preventing me to trace some sort of meaning among the lines.

This never happens when I listen to Anis. The flow is spontaneous and easy. What that mean for his poetry or tells about me, I don’t know, and I sincerely don’t care. As long as this love lasts, I am happy.